ZestMoney raises $13.4 million in a round led by Xiaomi

ZetsMoney also works with digital consumer partners including Amazon, Flipkart, UpGrad and Zefo.

BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based digital lending platform ZestMoney has raised $13.4 million in a round led by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi in an extension of its Series-A round. It also saw the participation of their existing investors PayU, Ribbit Capital and Omidyar Network.

ET had written in its April edition that Xiaomi was in advanced stages to pick up a stake in ZestMony.

ZestMoney will strengthen its technology and data science capabilities as well as expand use cases for the core ZestMoney Affordability Product.

“Xiaomi has built one of the most loved brands in India and they have a passionately consumer-focused philosophy which deeply resonated with our values as a company,” said Lizzie Chapman, cofounder, ZestMoney.

ZestMoney has already worked closely with Xiaomi to create the Mi Finance product to enable Mi customers to buy smartphones with a cardless EMI option. ZetsMoney also works with digital consumer partners including Amazon, Flipkart, UpGrad and Zefo.

Speaking with ET, Chapman said that the company has plans to expand into travel and healthcare sector as well as create additional flexible credit products to suit each stage of a users life. Further, Chapman said, that the platform is already getting around 3 lakh applications per month and does more than 3 crore disbursals in a day. Zest targets to reach a run rate of ?3,000 crore disbursals by December 2018.

Founded in 2015 by Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma and Ashish Anantharaman Zest Money had raised the series-A round of $6.5 million from global payments company PayU in 2017 and had raised the first round of $1.7 million in October 2015.

In a previous interaction with ET, Chapman had spoken about the company’s plans to enter into the education sector by diversifying from the consumer durable loans space. The company has already partnered with education startups like UpGrad, NMIMS, Great Learning and others.

0Comments

Are you a Business Owner? Get Your Free Business Listing on Economic Times.